Thanks everyone for the suggestions, they ranged from high-tech to no-tech! ;-) I just had a friend in the HVAC business suggest a solution the same as Bills, with a couple of twists. A 50-100 foot coil of small diameter copper tube in a fridge, *immersed in a large container of water*. The water both acts as mass to maintain temperature in the fridge, and transfers heat from the copper better. (a giant "heat sink") He says with this method I could use a small pump to circulate the water to my water bath, eliminating the waste of city water. One of the temp controllers I'm building could be used to control the pump, result should be 1/2 to 1 degree accuracy. All at a total cost of about 35-40 dollars. (Old fridges are easy to find for free.) Should leave plenty of room in the fridge to store film, paper, chemistry, and a 12-pack too! ;-)
Don > -----Original Message----- > From: William Robb [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 11:12 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Darkroom temperature control. > > Get a water cooler. > Or...... > If you are inclined, and like to bugger around with stuff, you can make a > cooling unit by running a copper cooling coil through an ordinary > refrigerator. You drill a couple of holes in the side of the > fridge and put > a cooling coil in there. Hook it up to your cold water supply on > one end and > a faucet on the other, then seal the holes with silicone to keep > the cold in > as much as possible. > If you need a large temperature drop, put in a larger coil. > > William Robb > >
